From instant New York Times bestseller and Nero Award-shortlisted TikTok favourite Lex Croucher comes your new dark academia obsession...
Briar always dreamed of going to the elite Temple School of Thaumaturgy.
Briar's best friend, Seb, just wanted them to stay together.
When Seb gets in and Briar doesn't, their relationship is shattered.
Until, on the cusp of their final year, Briar secures a summer job sorting through the old magical textbooks strictly forbidden from the students who know how to read them, finally gaining entry to the notorious ivory tower to see what their closest friend has become and to learn, at last, who really controls the secrets of magical selection...
The Secret History meets Her Majesty's Royal Coven in this stunningly prescient fusion of dark academia and crossover fantasy following the life of a non-binary student and aspiring magician who fails to gain admission to the UK's only school of magic feat. tyrant prefects, trials-by-sorcery, queer found family fighting the establishment, and childhood friends-to-rivals-to-enemies-to-more.
PRAISE FOR LEX CROUCHER:
'Exactly what I needed right now'
ALICE OSEMAN
'A total, rollicking delight'
CASEY MCQUISTON
'Fun and genuinely funny'
RAINBOW ROWELL
'I loved this book to a degree that's slightly ridiculous'
BECKY ALBERTALLI
'A wondrous book' JOHN GREEN
'Funny, devastating, achingly romantic' OLIVIE BLAKE
'The freshest contemporary fantasy I've read in years' LAURA STEVEN
'Wildly creative, very funny, and searingly angry' FREYA MARSKE
'Croucher is a master of the craft' KAT DUNN
From instant New York Times bestseller, Nero Award-shortlisted, TikTok Book of the Year-shortlisted, and YA Book Prize-winning Lex Croucher comes your new dark academia obsession . . .
Briar always dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy, the elite boarding school that's produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in history, long rumoured to be magical. Briar's best friend, Sebastian, just wanted them to stay together forever.
When Sebastian gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their relationship is shattered - until, at eighteen, Briar secures a temp job sorting through the magical junk in Temple's attic, and discovers that quiet, sensitive Sebastian, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become the villain.
Dark academia meets contemporary fantasy in this timely page-turner about a student who fails to gain admission to the UK's only school of magic but then gets a job there years later and unearths the ugly secrets simmering behind its ancient walls - unmissable for fans of Babel by R.F. Kuang and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo.
